Substantial changes in dental office apparatus have occurred in recent years. For example, high speed equipment is replacing old conventional low speed drills. Even the design of the dental chair has changed to permit the dentist to work on a prone patient without the use of mirrors.
The changeover to high speed drilling equipment has resulted in the use of high speed vacuum systems to handle the large quantities of cooling water and solids encountered. Prior art vacuum systems have frequently encountered problems due to inadequate water separation in the line to the vacuum pump causing excessive wear and corrosion to the pump bearings and other components. Typically, even small amounts of moisture will result in a burnt out or frozen up pump in just a few weeks or months of operation.
A further problem in high vacuum systems has been the filling up of the lines with sludge and amalgum often requiring the lines to be cut, drained and replaced at a large cost and inconvenience.
The use of high vacuum systems presents a further problem in the increased tendency to pick up inlays, crowns, etc., from the mouth. Unless caught by some means near the dental handpiece, the object must be searched for in the precious metal collector of the water separator tank at great inconvenience. A countervailing requirement is that the means for catching such objects should not clog up the vacuum line by catching amalgum and other small pieces of material.
In order to permit both an unassisted dentist to reach the dental handpieces in the instrument console panel and for an assistant to also reach the same, when a dental chair of the new style is used, the panel is typically located in a compromise location. A means for locating the console within easy reach of the dentist or an assistant is desirable.
A further drawback in prior art dental handpieces/panel configurations is the requirement that the dentist manually operate a switch in addition to picking up a handpiece.